


Once Upon a Year Gone By

by kaerstyne



Category: Persona 3
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M, New Game Plus, POV Second Person, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-24 05:50:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17698832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaerstyne/pseuds/kaerstyne
Summary: "Tell me, are you...satisfied, with the outcome you've achieved here?"





	Once Upon a Year Gone By

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prosodiical](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prosodiical/gifts).



You didn't expect to ever wake up again, after you fell asleep on that roof, but here you are, welcomed back to consciousness by familiar blue tones and the gentle rumbling of the elevator.

You're standing in front of Igor, the way you always are, and his gaze is fixed on you as he taps his fingers together. "You truly are a most remarkable guest, arriving back here even after our contract is complete. Most remarkable indeed."

You don't say anything. You're exhausted, and you were expecting all of this to be over, and you really just want him to say whatever is he's brought you here to say so everything can finally _stop_.

Igor steeples his hands in front of him, baring his teeth in a grin. "Tell me, are you... _satisfied_ , with the outcome you've achieved here?"

You remember the view of Tatsumi Port Island from the roof of the school, the view of a peaceful world forever free from Nyx's clutches. You remember the faces of your friends, happy and fulfilled; it doesn't matter if they remember you, as long as you know they're safe.

You open your mouth to say yes.

And then you remember what you'd tried to forget—the sound of a gunshot ringing through an alley, and the feeling of warm blood dripping through your fingers. The smell of copper and gunpowder in the air, and the tears streaming down your face.

Colorful flowers on white cloth.

You look Igor in the eyes and say, "No. No I'm not."

His grin widens, as if he already knew exactly what you were going to say. "My, my. Ambitious, aren't you?" He leans back in his chair. "Would you like to try it again?"

You blink, startled. "What?"

"I don't do this often, but if you're _truly_ unsatisfied with this outcome... I could return you to April 6, 2009, when our contract began, and you could live through the events of the past year all over again. But your current memories would remain intact, allowing you to aim for a different result." He spreads his arms wide. "Of course, you'd have no guarantee. You could end up leading the world to a worse fate than the one you've already reached."

Your mind is spinning with the enormity of the offer, with all of the possibilities and all of the ways this could go wrong. With all of the reasons it's a bad idea. You can't risk the entire world succumbing to the Fall because you want to rescue one more person. One life isn't worth it. You _can't_.

You want to. You want to so desperately that just thinking of it makes you gasp for breath, like you've spent the past five months drowning and finally managed to snatch a lungful of air.

Which really isn't that far off, if you're honest with yourself.

Igor is studying your expression with interest. "The contract still applies, of course. You must accept full responsibility for the choices you make. But the choice is yours."

"Yes." The words fall out of your mouth before you can do anything to stop them. "Yes. Please. Send me back."

His mouth curls into another grin, and you can't tell if he actually means it to feel sinister or if that's just the weight of what you've done bearing down on you. "As you wish."

He waves his hand, and just like that you fall into blackness once more, consciousness drifting untethered to the world around you.

And when you open your eyes again, you're on a train.

_"This is the final train bound for Tatsumi Port Island..."_

  


* * *

  


It's easier than you expected, to lie to your friends and pretend everything is fine. In hindsight you don't know why you're surprised; you'd been doing it for months already, after all. You haven't been fine since October 4.

You can't afford to get anything wrong this time. You have to find a way to save Shinjiro, but you refuse to do anything that would compromise your ability to stop Nyx. You won't allow anyone else to get hurt because of your selfishness. You _won't_.

You have a few months before Shinjiro joins up with SEES to figure out the best way to approach this, and eventually you decide to try getting even closer to him this time around. It'll get you more information you can use, and hopefully more opportunities to intervene and keep October 4 from repeating itself.

And if nothing else, you'll have a few more good memories to hold onto if you fail.

Everything unfolds just as it did before, and you spend months doing your best to keep your own actions on track. The few glimpses you get of Shinjiro in the summer months make your heart ache, but you clamp down on those emotions and stay on the same path you've already tread. You don't want to accidentally steer him away from rejoining SEES; you don't know if the power of that one social link could be the difference between stopping Nyx or not, and it's safer not to risk it. You do try asking Akihiko and Mitsuru to tell you more about him after your first meetings, but they don't tell you much that you didn't already know the last time around.

So you play your part and wait, and when September finally arrives you dive headfirst into your new plan. You might be a little too eager, in fact; Shinjiro seems a bit put off by the force of your attention, and you make yourself dial it back. You can do this, you tell yourself—it's just what you did last time, but more so.

And for a while you can almost forget about Nyx and saving the world and everything you're here to do, because Shinjiro is _here_ and he's scolding you about your eating habits, laughing at your dumb jokes, getting embarrassed when you compliment him. Everything is even sweeter the second time around, and you barely even remember your plan to get closer to him this time—it happens naturally, as you're swept along by your growing adoration and desperate for more.

Shinjiro himself is the one who reminds you of what's coming. This time you understand why he's talking like something horrible is about to happen, but knowing doesn't make it disturb you any less. You're running out of time, and you haven't found an obvious clue about what to do next.

The watch, you realize—you never figured out what happened to his watch. You don't know how much it matters, but it seems important to him, so if nothing else finding it should make him happy.

You ask him where he last saw it, and then ask Akihiko and Mitsuru and the others, and eventually you trace your steps back to the mall. You vaguely remember there being a lost and found at the police station, which seems as good a place as any to start.

Five minutes later you walk out of the station triumphantly, clutching the pocket watch to your chest. You've changed something, no matter how small a difference it ends up making.

You return the watch to him that evening, and the two of you end up sitting at the shrine talking for half the night. You love hearing stories about Shinjiro and Akihiko as kids, so getting to hear new ones you've never heard before delights you, and Shinjiro is happy enough to oblige. Plus, the cold wind gives you a good excuse to snuggle up against him, burrowing into his coat. He lets you do it, and even smiles at you a little when he thinks you aren't looking, and for a few hours everything is perfect.

The next day is October 1, and you're running out of time, so you decide to push your luck just a little bit further, and corner Shinjiro in the common room at night.

"I love you," you tell him, the words coming out automatically when he asks what it is you want. He resists the idea, which doesn't surprise you, and in an ideal world maybe you could have broached this more gently, but this world is far from ideal and you don't have _time_.

 _I don't care if people get the wrong idea_ , you want to scream at him—you know what you're asking for, and maybe it's selfish, but the whole reason you're here is because you couldn't stop yourself from being selfish, so you might as well keep doing it. And you're pretty sure he's only objecting because he thinks you shouldn't bother with him, not because he doesn't want to.

You manage to worm your way into his room, and when he embraces you you know you were right, he does want this too. Maybe he wanted it the last time, even, and you just weren't brave enough to ask, but you're not going to let him get away this time.

And finally his mouth meets yours, and everything you've wanted since the last time it was October 1 swells to a crescendo inside of you as you pull him closer.

You spend a long, wonderful night together in his arms, the happiest you've been in longer than you can remember, and the next morning you're more determined than ever to put a stop to what you know is going to happen.

And October 4 comes again, and you can't do anything at all.

You spend half of October 5 staring at a hospital bed, wondering what you could have done better. You tried to stop him, really you did, but short of tying him up somewhere, you can't think how you could have kept him out of that alley.

At least he isn't actually dead, this time, but it's hardly better if he never wakes up.

You go through the rest of the year on autopilot—you remember what you did before, and the difference in Shinjiro's condition hasn't changed much, so it's not hard to keep playing your part. You have to do it, really; you think if you stop long enough to actually have emotions about anything, you might not be able to make it to March.

You think some of the others might notice what you're doing—Junpei definitely does, at least—but they don't say anything, and you don't bring it up, and you force yourself to be fine until graduation comes.

Aigis comes with you to the roof as you wait for the end, and this time it's almost a relief, to feel your consciousness slipping away. At least there won't be any more of this.

  


* * *

  


You wake up to see Igor tapping his fingers and studying you once more. "I assume," he says, mouth twisting into a grin, "that this outcome doesn't satisfy you either?"

"It isn't what I wanted," you hear yourself say, in a voice that sounds small and far away to your own ears.

"I thought not." His grin widens. "Again, then?"

That's enough to shock you back to alertness. "You can _do_ that?"

He chuckles. "I can send you back as many times as you're willing to agree to the terms. As long as nothing else interferes."

 _As long as Nyx is still defeated_ , is what you hear in the silence between his words. You close your eyes and try to imagine what other paths you could take, if there are enough options you're willing to try to be worth putting yourself through that again.

And then you realize it doesn't matter, because you're going to say yes anyway.

You open your eyes. "I'll do it again. As many times as it takes."

"I thought you might see it that way," Igor says, and waves his hand.

_"This is the final train bound for Tatsumi Port Island..."_

  


* * *

  


You decide to go in the complete opposite direction this time, and ignore Shinjiro entirely. It's not really what you want, but you can live with it if it means he survives to November.

You end up spending more time with Akihiko instead, as a way to keep tabs on Shinjiro without having to talk to him directly. And getting close to him before September means you might have more influence over what he does in that critical period. You feel awful for even thinking about your friends that way, but it's hard not to adopt a more detached perspective when you already know everything that's going to happen.

You thought you might be able to stop Shinjiro from rejoining SEES at all, and just make up any difference in power with sheer stubbornness, but when the time actually comes you realize it's a lost cause—there's no way you can stop Akihiko from going to Shinjiro after Ken gets involved, and no way you can stop Shinjiro from joining the group once he hears about that. You understand why, but at the same time you kind of want to scream at both of them that they can't do this, don't they understand what's going to happen if they go through with this.

September comes to an end faster than you'd like, and on October 5 you find yourself staring at memorial flowers in the school auditorium once again. Apparently your relationship with each other won't do anything to stop what happens in that alley, nor will your attempts to gently convince everyone involved to take different actions.

Fine. Then you'll just have to try something else.

  


* * *

  


_"This is the final train bound for Tatsumi Port Island..."_

  


* * *

  


And over the next years, decades, you try something else. Everything you can think of, in fact, including some things you would never even consider under normal circumstances. You lie, scheme, and manipulate; you find out what happens if you lock Shinjiro in a closet on October 4, or make secret deals with Strega. You do everything you can think of that won't interfere with fighting Nyx, no matter what your friends think of it, or how uncomfortable it makes you.

None of it works. Oh, sometimes you _think_ it's worked, when you wake up on October 5 and Shinjiro is alive and well, but it never lasts. A week or a month later, there will be another encounter with Strega, or a Tartarus mission gone wrong, and everything will turn out exactly the same as it always does. The coma is the best outcome you can manage, but there's never any hope he'll actually wake up.

You lose track of how many times you've done this, the years all blurring together in your mind. You have conversations and events memorized so well you can practically sleepwalk through the first six months with no one the wiser. You have to hold yourself back in combat to keep anyone from getting suspicious; your physical abilities don't carry over, but your mental abilities do, and even the toughest of Shadows don't put up much of a fight when you have their every movement burned into the inside of your skull. You don't know why you were ever worried about having to defeat Nyx every time—she's nothing to you now, barely a blip on your radar. One year you specifically keep yourself as weak as possible to see if she'll present more of a challenge, but she still doesn't. Honestly, the hardest part is sustaining the final battle energy with your teammates, and not letting them know you could finish the whole fight yourself with one hand tied behind your back.

You slip up, sometimes, do things in the wrong order or comment on things you shouldn't know yet, but you always manage to smooth it over. And even if you don't, it hardly matters, when everything is reset come March.

But after years and years and years, you're started to reach your limit. You've been doing things your body and mind were never equipped to do, and you're so _tired_ all the time that it becomes increasingly harder not to drift away with Aigis on the roof. You still want to save him, you'll never not want to save him, but sometimes when you wake up in the Velvet Room, you think about telling Igor _no_ when he asks the question.

After a particularly horrifying failure in which you somehow manage to get Shinjiro killed in _September_ , you think you're about ready to give up. You feel like your soul is fraying, like one more push will make your body crumble apart. You're exhausted down to your marrow, and sometimes if you stand still for too long you think you can feel your heart bleeding inside your chest.

One more time. You'll do it one more time, get the happiest outcome you know how to achieve, and then you'll put a stop to this.

You go through the motions again, trying harder than you have in a while to keep your cheery persona firmly in place. If this is going to be the last time through, you want everyone to see you at your best, with no slip-ups. And it does make it more fun, when you can really throw yourself into things and pretend you're at least sort of normal. You love everyone you befriended along this ill-advised journey, and it's nice to be able to just bask in that for once.

When September arrives you metaphorically throw yourself into Shinjiro's arms, determined to savor every second. You haven't been able to enjoy this properly since that second time through, and you'd almost forgotten how wonderful it was to just talk with him, never mind anything else.

You find the watch, and have your two perfect nights together, and you wait.

You don't want to get out of bed on the morning of October 5, but you do it anyway, dragging yourself to school and trying to ignore the feeling of sinking dread that's taken up residence in your stomach. The others understand, at least, and no one questions you being in a funk for a while, even if they don't know the full reason why.

You pull yourself together enough to rally everyone through the winter months, keeping everything on track, and soon enough the end starts to come. On January 31 you visit Shinjiro's hospital room to say goodbye to him for good, and then you go seal Nyx one final time.

February is an unfocused blur, the way it always is, as all the power you've discharged takes its toll on you and everyone's memories start to fade. You feel nebulous and untethered all the way up until the days before graduation in March, but then you give yourself a good slap on the cheeks and head out to see everyone one last time.

You've halfway through your round of the school on the last day when you hear it: that girl in your class, the one who loves rumors, saying she's heard that guy in a coma woke up.

"Is that true?" you ask her, desperately wanting to believe. He had something in his breast pocket, she says, that saved him from death, and he'll probably be weak for a while, but you don't care about that as long as he's awake.

It's too late to go to the hospital to confirm it with your own eyes—you can feel yourself starting to fade, and you have to make it up to the roof before your body gives out entirely. But this is enough, you think to yourself as you climb up the stairs; just knowing you finally managed to do _something_ is enough.

Aigis isn't there, when you reach the roof, and you frown at the empty space where she should be—this has never happened before. But then you hear a voice from behind you calling your name, and it's the greatest thing you've ever heard.

You turn around slowly, not quite trusting yourself to believe, but Shinjiro is _there_ , leaning against the wall and panting from exertion. "Geez... Don't make a sick guy push himself so hard..."

You laugh in delight and run to meet him, pulling him into a tight embrace, and for once you feel content even as you feel your consciousness slipping away, because you've finally, _finally_ gotten the ending you wanted.


End file.
